


A Christmas Carol

by marshmallownose



Category: House of Anubis
Genre: Gen, Merry Christmas, basically it’s the plot of A Christmas Carol, but Victor is Scrooge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21926374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmallownose/pseuds/marshmallownose
Summary: Rufus was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The agreement to hold their tongues about his departure from life was sworn by the residents of Anubis House who witnessed his being dragged into a fiery demise by a vengeful spirit and Victor Emanuel Rodenmaar Jr.. And Victor’s stern order to keep quiet was kept well by the students.So, yes. Rufus Zeno was as dead as a door-nail (for good, this time).
Relationships: (past), Sarah Frobisher-Smythe/Victor Rodenmaar Jr., Victor Rodenmaar & Rufus Zeno, Victor Rodenmaar & Sarah Frobisher-Smythe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. The Face in the Doorknob

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that a good chunk of the writing in this is lifted directly from Charles Dickens’ story. Much of it is my own writing, but I did take the exact words in many places.

Rufus was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The agreement to hold their tongues about his departure from life was sworn by the residents of Anubis House who witnessed his being dragged into a fiery demise by a vengeful spirit and Victor Emanuel Rodenmaar Jr.. And Victor’s stern order to keep quiet was kept well by the students.

So, yes. Rufus Zeno was as dead as a door-nail (for good, this time).

Victor knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Not only did everyone who witnessed Senkhara make swift his end, but Victor and Rufus had once been, for many years, close friends and partners. Before Rufus’ betrayal, Victor had been his sole friend, and now he was his sole mourner. And even Victor was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, after all that had transpired after Rufus had turned his back on them all.

The mention of Rufus’ demise brings this story back to the point. There is no doubt that Rufus was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story about to be related to you.

Victor was a crotchety old man—far older in his soul than he was in flesh, thanks to the Elixir of Life—with a face pulled taught at the mouth, as though he’d been suckling at a slice of lemon. When he wasn’t bothering himself with sticking his nose in the business of meddlesome adolescent children that he claimed were doing quite the same to him, Victor would coop himself up in his office on the Anubis Estate and occupy his time by stroking the feathers of his constant companion, Corbierre. Corbierre was also as dead as a door-nail, but that was quite alright, for Corbierre was simply a stuffed raven.

Victor was cold and forbidding, and while he didn’t delight in tormenting the residents of Anubis House, he didn’t truly mind it either. Particularly around Christmas time.

It so happens that this story takes place at Christmas time. Christmas Eve, in fact, exactly ten months and twenty-three days after Rufus’ death. Victor sat stewing at his desk, nose wrinkled in irritation as his friend—if one could quite call them friends—Eric Sweet puttered around the office.

Eric, while having been equally involved with his fair share of dubious plots as Victor (one even just a few weeks earlier, though that had seemingly failed horribly, and Robert slept on), was a right jolly man. He was odd, but exceedingly friendly, and cared a great deal for his son, Eddison. Victor was not nearly as fond of the boy, but that was another matter entirely.

In between babbling on about school business (as he was eager to put the entire eclipse ceremony to bed), Eric Sweet was singing some odd Christmas carol in Latin. It was driving Victor particularly mad.

Finally, it became unbearable. “Would you shut up?” he bellowed, and to his credit Eric barely flinched, quite used to Victor’s bad temper.

“Now, now, Victor. I know this time of year brings up some painful memories,” he began, and Victor bristled, “particularly after what’s just happened, but it’s Christmas. You might at least try to find some love in your heart for your fellow man.”

“Bah!” Victor scoffed, standing up from his desk to appear intimidating.

Eric’s smile turned cheeky, and it was clear where his son had gotten it from. “Humbug?” he suggested teasingly. Victor glared menacingly, and Eric shrunk away, knowing when he’d been beaten. The headmaster shivered slightly. “Don’t you ever stoke the furnace?” he asked, a note of concern in his tone. “Eddison—Eddie—is right. This house is far too cold.”

“Too expensive,” Victor grumbled, for on top of being an embittered old man, he was also a cheap one. “Perhaps if the children stopped snooping around past curfew, they would find that their beds are plenty warm so long as they’re in them.”

Eric pursed his lips disapprovingly but said nothing more on the subject. Victor sat back down.

Two voices drifted up the stairs, and Victor rolled his eyes as they came closer, giggling inanely. A knock sounded on the door, and Victor nodded begrudgingly to Eric to open it. Two of the residents, Joy and KT, stood outside; they held a red bucket with the words Sugarplum Charity Fund written out crudely with purple marker. Their smiles were wide, but Victor could see both tense when his gaze landed on them. Good, thought Victor, that would make this interaction end much faster.

“Good afternoon, Victor!” chirped Joy in her most chipper tone. “And same to you, Mr. Sweet. Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, Merry Christmas Eve!” said KT, clearly addressing only Eric.

Eric beamed at her. “Yes, Happy Christmas to you too, Joy, KT,” he said, addressing both girls. Victor sneered a bit.

“Well, what are you bothering me for? Get on with it,” he urged, already tired of this.

KT’s smile faltered, while Joy’s stretched even wider. “We’ve come to ask whether you’d be so generous as to donate to the Sugarplum Foundation! You know every year, the student committee raises the money for the needy children in the area so they have a little extra going into the new year.”

“Yes, I know all about that,” Victor muttered.

KT brightened, lifting her phone, which no doubt had a list of names on it. “Great! What can we put you down for?”

“Nothing,” Victor answered.

“Nothing?” KT parroted, and Eric’s frown deepened.

Joy didn’t take the hint, though. “Oh, you want to remain anonymous,” she deduced.

“I want to be left alone,” snapped Victor, making both girls jump. “Since you miscreants keep asking me what I want, that’s my answer.

“But it’s Christmas,” KT said weakly.

Victor scoffed, “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. Now take your ‘Merry Christmas’ and get out of my office!”

Joy opened her mouth to snarl something out of anger, but Eric shook his head, ushering them back out the door.

“Put me down for £100,” Eric said appeasingly. “I’ll give you the money as soon as I can.”

Joy’s face softened, and KT jotted down his name. “Thank you, Mr. Sweet. Happy Christmas to you.” She stuck her head around Mr. Sweet’s torso and glared at Victor. “And a very Merry Christmas to you, too, you old fart!”

“Get out!” Victor bellowed, practically leaping to his feet in fury. As the girls fled down the stairs, he called after them. “One more word out of you, and you’ll be scrubbing toilet seats with your own toothbrushes!”

“Now, Victor,” Eric scolded, but the caretaker cut him off.

“You, too, Eric. I wish to be left alone now.”

Eric looked at him for a moment, then sighed deeply. “Alright then,” he said. “Merry Christmas, nonetheless.”

Victor’s heated gaze followed him out the door. “Bah!” he said said again, going back to his papers and books.

As the evening drew on, the sounds of the children’s merry-making drifted upward, and Victor could hardly wait to give his usual speech and drop the pin, if only to silence the incessant racket.

When ten o’clock rolled about, Victor made his way down the stairs, only to find himself face to face with a small crowd.

“C’mon, Victor,” whined Alfie irritatingly. “It’s Christmas Eve!”

“Yeah,” Patricia chimed in, equally as irritating. “We should be allowed to stay up a little past!”

A chorus of children’s voices began to agree, becoming nearly unbearable to Old Victor’s ears. “ENOUGH!” he roared, the room going deathly quiet in the wake of his order.

It was then that Trudy came bustling in from the kitchen, tutting away. “Now, Victor,” she began, and Victor swore if one more person addressed him in that condescending tone, he’d— “Don’t worry; I will get them all nestled snug in their beds.” She turned to the residents and clapped her hands. “Come on! Off to your rooms with the lot of you! Or else Father Christmas won’t be making a stop here.”

Jerome and Patricia rolled their eyes good-naturedly, as Alfie and Willow squealed simultaneously and darted off, with Willow dragging a bemused Mara and Joy in tow. Eddie and KT pounded their fists together before breaking off, while Fabian yawned loudly and trudged away to his room.

When the foyer was cleared of students, Victor nodded begrudgingly at Trudy, who merely smiled and pinched his cheek. Victor curled his lip in disgust at her back as she left for her own rooms.

“It is ten o’clock! You have five minutes precisely, and then I want to hear a pin drop!” A speech as old as time itself, but still as effective as it always was. He waited for sound, but none came. “Hmmph,” he said, turning around to lock the front door.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knob on the door, except that it was very old and ornately designed. It is also a fact, that Victor had seen and used it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Victor had as little of what is called creativity or imagination about him as any man in the United Kingdom.

Let it also be borne in mind that Victor had barely bestowed a thought on Rufus, since his last mention of his former friend and enemy some months prior. And then let anyone explain, if they can, how it happened that Victor, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knob, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change—not a doorknob, but Rufus’ face.

Rufus’ face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like the locket worn by Chosen Ones past. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Victor as Rufus used to look. The old eyes in a young face were wide open, but remained perfectly motionless, watching him. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.

As Victor looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it swiftly became a doorknob again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not racing as though he were a young boy about to be beaten by his father, would be untrue. But he put his hand resolutely upon the key he had let go of in his shock, turned it sturdily, and locked the door.

He did pause, with a moment’s irresolution, before he turned away, and he did look cautiously behind himself before finishing up the nighttime maintenance, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Rufus’ hand reaching after him out into the hall. But there was nothing there, so he said “Bah!” and put the incident into the back of his head.

Still, his heartbeat seemed to resound through the house like thunder. Every room above, tunnel deep within the cellar below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Victor was not a man to be frightened so easily, however. He finished locking up and walked across the hall, and up the stairs back to his office. He closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not usual for him. Thus secured against any more surprise or nonsense wrought by any of the blasted children of the house, he settled down into his chair and stroked Corbierre’s cold feathers.

Time ticked onward, slow and steady. The house was silent and still, only the wind outside the glass panes and the clock in the foyer below making any noise at all.

When the hour struck twelve, the lamp on his desk flickered. Victor looked up from his book sharply. The light flickered again, the buzzing of electricity humming in his skull. The light flickered faster and faster, and the buzzing grow louder and louder, and Victor found himself shouting in alarm. The room was plunged into sudden darkness as the bulb exploded inside the lampshade. Victor cried out, covering his face in case any shards were to hit him, and when he lifted his eyes once again he was met with the piercing gaze of Rufus Zeno.

The same face as in the doorknob. The very same as it was in life. Victor could not believe it.

“What do you want with me?” he managed after a moment, his voice gravelly with tension.

“Much!”—Rufus’ voice, no doubt about it.

“Who are you?”

“Ask me who I was.”

“Who were you then?” said Victor, raising his voice.

“In life I was your nemesis, Rufus Zeno.”

“How odd,” said Victor, for what else could he say?

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the spirit.

Victor was feeling brave. “I don’t,” he replied.

“Why do you doubt yourself, Victor? You have always been so terribly sure of everything before this moment”

“I and many others saw you dragged down to the deepest chambers of a hell few can imagine,” explained Victor coldly. “Your spirit cannot be here.”

“And yet I am,” answered the spirit, certainly as petulant and snide as Rufus was.

“Then perhaps it is something I ate,” decided Victor, “You may be an undigested bit of whatever that blasted woman made up for supper. Yes, there’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

The spirit then let out a sound so terrible, even Victor, who had faced many horrible ghostly trials, had the presence of mind to be frightened.

Rufus got up close in Victor’s face, and he could smell the smoke of hellfire on the spectre’s breath. “Do you or do you not believe in me?” he snarled.

Victor gritted his teeth. “I do,” he admitted, refusing to let his teeth chatter in terror. “I must. But why do you come to me now?”

Rufus leaned back, his body giving of a ghostly glow that only just illuminated the office. “Because, you stupid fool,” he said. “If you are not careful, my fate is yours.”

Victor blinked. “I don’t understand, Rufus.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” the spirit huffed. “We both longed for eternal life, but never like this. You are bound for a fiery torture such as mine, and each day your actions save up for your ticket.

“Hear me!” cried the ghost. “My time is nearly gone.”

“I will,” agreed Victor, eager to be rid of Rufus and his frightening prophecy.

“I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope that I myself requested on your behalf—not that you deserve it.”

Victor, through his fear and confusion, felt suddenly touched by an emotion he’d long since thought he’d buried. “That was very kind of you to do,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You will be haunted,” continued the Ghost, paying Victor’s words no mind “by Three Spirits.”

Victor’s jaw dropped “Is that the supposed chance and hope you mentioned, Rufus?” he demanded, in a faltering voice.

“It is.”

“I—I think I’d rather not,” said Victor, placing a shaking hand on Corbierre’s head.

“Without their visits,” said Rufus, “you cannot hope to stray from the path I once tread. Expect the first when the clock strikes one.”

“Couldn’t I take them all at once, and have it over and done with?” asked Victor.

Once again, Rufus plowed over him. “Expect the second when the bell tolls two. And the third on the third hour. Look to see me no more. Remember, Victor, what has passed between us!”

When it had said these words, the spectre of his friend and enemy disappeared into the dark, leaving Victor alone in the blackness.


	2. The First Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: This entire fic is a blend of my writing and Charles Dickens'. Many of the passages are lifted directly from his book. Obviously I have tweaked them and added my own stuff.
> 
> AND HOLY CRAP— can you say long overdue or what?
> 
> Anyway, the timeline is so hard to pin down, I just put this off for sooooooo long because I didn't feel like figuring it out, but I did today so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Anyway, hopefully I can get the other two out, but honestly....you're more likely gonna get the next two chapters within the next two Christmases lol.
> 
> ANYWAY enjoy!

When Victor awoke it was so dark, that, squinting from his desk chair, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window leading out into the hall from the opaque and ornately decorated walls of his office. He must have nodded off at his desk again; the whole encounter had been a dream.

Victor sighed in relief as he rubbed at his eyes, scoffing at how frightened he’d been of a foolish nightmare. It was then that the chimes of the clock in the foyer struck the four quarters, so he listened for the hour to see how long he’d been asleep.

To his great astonishment, the resonate bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two the last he’d checked the time. The clock was wrong. One of the children attempting to get more time before curfew, surely. Twelve!

He pulled his watch from his coat pocket and flicked it open, intent on correcting the most preposterous clock down below. He gaped at the watch’s face: its rapid little second hand ticked merrily on while the watch read twelve.

“Why, it isn't possible,” said Victor, snapping the watch shut and addressing Corbierre, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It certainly isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of his chair, groped his way to the window behind him, and pulled back the curtain. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his coat before he could see anything; and could see very little even then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of any students running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because if the sun had gone dark then something had truly gone terribly wrong with all manner of artifacts—and people—tied to the house.

Victor returned to his chair, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavored not to think, the more he thought.

Rufus’ Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through: Was it a dream or not?

Victor sat in this state, stroking Corbierre’s head, until the chime had gone three-quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that Rufus had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to the Field of Rushes, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear:

Ding, dong!

“A quarter past,” mumbled Victor, counting.

Ding, dong!

“Half past,” said Victor.

Ding, dong!

“A quarter to it.” he said.

Ding, dong!

“The hour itself,” said Victor triumphantly to his raven, “and nothing else!”

He spoke before the hour bell fully sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Suddenly, light flashed up in the room, and Victor was forced to shield his eyes and duck down with a cry of surprise.

The light faded and Victor, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who’d been forewarned.

He gasped when he took in the specter, his eyes tracing the familiar features of the girl he’d thought he’d finally rid himself of for good. The spirit wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that it wore the shape of Nina Martin.

And yet it was clearly not her, for, as Victor looked closer with increasing steadiness, its belt sparkled and glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness; being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again—the visage of Nina Martin, the Chosen One—distinct and clear as ever.

“Are you the Spirit whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Victor, silently cursing the tremor in his voice.

“I am.”

It was Nina’s voice as well, but softer and gentler than he’d ever known it to be. The spirit’s voice came from every direction, and this unsettled him greatly.

“Who and what are you?” Victor demanded. “Why do you wear the Paragon’s face?”

Nina—no, not Nina, he had to remind himself—smiled serenely. “I do this for your comfort,” it said, and Victor couldn’t help but sneer art that, for he’d never very much liked the girl and certainly didn’t feel comforted. “I am the Ghost of Past,” it said.

“Long Past?” inquired Victor.

“No. Your past.”

“Then you are wasting your time,” he found the courage to say. “I have no desire to revisit my past.”

“What!” exclaimed the Ghost that wore Nina Martin’s face, “would you so soon forget what forged you, with worldly hands? Is it not enough that you are bound for suffering in your future, that you would so soon blot out the good moments in your history?”

Victor sniffed, disgruntled, but conceded to the Spirit. He then made bold to inquire what business brought her there.

“Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

Victor expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for she said immediately—

“Your reclamation, then. Take heed!” It put out its strong hand as it spoke, reaching over the desk, and clasped him gently by the arm. “Rise and walk with me!”

It would have been in vain for Victor to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that the thermometer a long way below freezing. The grasp, though gentle as a young woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose; but, finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his coat.

“I am a mortal,” Victor reminded the spirit bitterly, “and liable to fall.”

Nina—not Nina—paused, considering for a moment. “Bear but a touch of my hand _there_ ,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon the nearly empty grounds of the Anubis Estate, with no spires of the school in sight. All manner of the new footpaths and technology had vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground. He turned and looked up at the house and gaped at it in shock.

It looked much the same as it did when he was a boy. Exactly so, in fact.

“I don’t believe it,” said Victor after a long, astonished moment, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. "Have we gone back? Back through time?”

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Her gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand sounds and odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten.

“Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost. “And what is that upon your cheek?”

Victor blinked, suddenly embarrassed, and muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was nothing; and begged the Ghost to lead him where she would.

They walked along the side of the house, Victor recognising every gate, and post, and tree that they’d had to clear away to make room for the commodities a boarding school would require.

A child rushed past, laughing wildly, as an older man chased after her. Victor blinked in shock. The gardener’s daughter, Emily, and the gardener himself. They had been dead for well over seventy years. He called out to them, but they paid him no mind, lost in their phantom game.

“These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost, a tinge of sympathy colouring her words; Victor was reminded of when the real Nina Martin had given him his father’s ring. “They have no consciousness of us.”

He hadn’t thought about the gardener or his daughter—the young girl who’d been as much his friend as Sarah and Rufus had been—in decades. Why was he now rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas?

What was merry Christmas to Victor? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him? Besides, Christmas had nothing to do with the gods he was concerned with.

He remembered this day already, several days before the Christmas of 1928, when it was just him and his father living in the house. Sarah by then was already living with the Zenos more often than not.

“The house is not quite deserted,” said the Spirit. “A solitary child, neglected by his father, is left there still.”

Victor said he knew it and bit back a sob.

Against the stark white of the snow, the house appeared larger. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle light and not too much love to speak of.

They went, the spectre and Victor, up the stone steps to the front door of Anubis House. It opened before them, and disclosed the melancholy foyer, the decor as golden and Egyptian as ever. Off to their left in the living room, a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Victor moved without thinking, crouched down by the boy, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed waterspout in the yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Victor with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, pulling his attention away from his younger self, intent upon his reading. “Let us see the next Christmas,” she said, and pointed toward the door.

It opened; and a little girl and boy came darting in, and, the little girl smiled widely at the sight of someone behind Victor. She grabbed the little boy’s hand, dragging him forward as she rushed past Victor into the arms of his younger self—now a year older. She put her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her 'dear, dear Victor.’ The other boy just laughed and ruffled his hair merrily.

“I have finally come home, Victor!” said the girl, clapping her hands, and bending down to laugh. “To this dark house: home, home, home!”

“For a little while,” agreed the young boy.

“Home, Sarah?” returned the the younger Victor, still blushing from her kisses.

“Yes!” Sarah exclaimed, brimful of a glee he hadn’t seen much since her mother died and her father…well…suffered a fate not so different. “Home for good and all. Home for ever and ever. Isabel and Gustav have demanded we be allowed to live here again, Rufus and I! I hardly ever thought I’d miss this place or you, and yet I desperately did.”

“You are quite a woman, Sarah!” exclaimed the boy.

Rufus raised up his arms and spun around laughing. “We're to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.”

Sarah clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch Victor’s head; and, laughed again, as he ducked out of her reach.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, “Tell that wretched little creature to quiet down!” and in the doorway appeared the Victor Rodenmaar Sr. who glared on the trio with a ferocious condescension.

Victor turned toward the Spirit sorrowfully. “I don’t wish to have this memory tainted.”

The Spirit looked at him and took pity on him. The figures faded and they were alone in the house.

“Always a bit of a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,” said the Ghost. “But she had a large heart!”

“So she had,” agreed Victor. “You're right. I will not gainsay it.”

“She died an old woman,” said the Ghost, “and had, as I think, a child.”

Victor startled. “Did she? I never knew.” he said.

“Perhaps she did,” said the Ghost who wore Nina Martin’s visage. “Or perhaps she didn’t. It is of no consequence now. It wouldn’t have been yours anyway.”

The words smarted, and Victor refused to dignify that with an answer. “Let us see something else.”

The Spirit nodded silently, and waved its hand.

The light changed as it filtered through the window, casting the room in shadows. Here, too, it was Christmas-time again; but it was evening, only two lamps were lighted in the living room.

The Ghost motioned for him to turn and he did so, taking in the sight of an older Sarah, Rufus, and himself with documents spread out across the table. The sight of them both alive again and still themselves made Victor nearly cry again.

Rufus laid down his pen, and looked at his watch, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his vest; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and cried out, in a comfortable, jovial voice— “We have ourselves a school. Sure, it will take us a few years to get it up and running, but…” He trailed off and wrapped a friendly arm around Victor.

Sarah smiled. “No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Rufus. Christmas, Victor! Let's have the shutters up,” she said, with a sharp clap of her hands.

Victor couldn't believe how they’d went at it! They charged about the room like racehorses, drawing the curtains away and lifting the shutters that had long since been removed.

It was all ready in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the room was snug, and warm, and dry, and bright as though the years of tragedy did not stain the walls.

Soon enough, the phonograph had a place for itself and a jaunty carol poured from the funnel. The three of them danced and clapped and whirled around like figurines inside a music box.

Victor watched with a wistful, damp eye as his younger self and Rufus put on an elaborate, improvised routine for Sarah’s amusement, taking each other in their arms and jumping about as though they weren’t already past their prime.

He felt the Spirit's glance, and looked away from the scene.

“What is the matter?” asked the Ghost.

“Nothing in particular,” said Victor.

“Something, I think,” the Ghost insisted.

“No,” said Victor, “No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to that man just now. That's all.”

The Spirit regarded him unwaveringly, and Victor was unnerved by her appearance. Even recent past seemed enough of a haunt for him in the form of the Paragon.

He was unable to keep himself from explaining. “It was not long after this, that Rufus began taking the Elixir, before he turned his back on us.” He hesitated, and looked back at the face of his once friend with a grin that wrinkled the corners of his eyes. “Turned his back on me… I would stop him if I were given a chance.”

“So you would have more of the Elixir yourself?” asked the Ghost.

Victor was silent for a long while. “Naturally,” he said at long last, voice wavering with hesitation. “Of course that is why.”

The Spirit nodded in that way he’d seen Miss Martin do, knowingly. The vision faded and they now stood in a void of darkness.

“My time grows short,” she observed. “Quick.”

This was not addressed to Victor, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Victor saw himself, standing just outside of the old cemetery’s stone walls. He was even older now; a man in his fifties, maybe sixties—no, he was 65 here; he knew this day all too well. His face had the harsh and rigid lines of later years, already beginning to wear the signs of care and avarice that he’d worn to that day. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

It would not be long till he began taking the Elixir himself.

He was not alone, but stood by the side of a woman in a deep black mourning dress in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of all that had passed.

“It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little. I was a fool to think that anything had changed. Another idol has long since displaced me; and if it can comfort you in time to come, as I have tried to do, I have no reason to be upset.”

“What idol has displaced you, Sarah?” he retorted, fixing his cap.

“A golden one. Many, many golden ones…”

“I know it has long since escaped your notice how important your father’s discoveries and secrets are,” Victor said coarsely, “but I refuse to be cowed from uncovering the truth you refuse to lend me even after all this time. Surely there is nothing evil about the pursuit of life.”

“You fear death too much,” she answered. “The pursuit of life has brought nothing but death and suffering. My mother, my father, your father, and now Rufus too.” Sarah shook her head, tears dribbling down her already wrinkling cheeks. “I fear it will claim you too, Victor, and you will die in body as I can see you’ve already done in spirit. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of proving your father right. Of proving me wrong.” The echo of Sarah turned to face him fully. “I was too young to stop him from hurting you and too young to stop you from going down that same path of ruin. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, greed, engrosses you. Have I not?”

“What then,” he retorted, taking her hand in his. “Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? My feelings are not changed towards you. I want to reproduce this recipe not only for my father’s legacy, but for us. For you and me. Rufus was careless; he betrayed us. He betrayed you, Sarah. I may not be an Osirian, but I have always strived to protect you.”

She shook her head, squeezing his hand gently. “Have you? When we were young and you—“

“That is long past, Sarah. You know it is. I never meant to hurt you.” He lifted her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles.

“Our relationship is an old one,” she sighed. “It was made when we were both mortal and content to be so. You were changed from your youth. When it was made, you were another man. Now, I see you have changed back and become the man your father wanted you to be.”

“You say it as though it’s a bad thing, to be what my father wanted me to be,” he said impatiently.

“Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are now,” she returned. “I am. I have always been. Death promised us happiness when we were one in heart, but the prospect brings only misery to you now that we are two. How often I have thought of this moment, I will not say.” Sarah looked over her shoulder toward the graveyard. “But I’ve thought of it enough, and can release you.”

“Have I ever sought release?”

“In words, Victor? No. Never.”

“In what, then?” he challenged.

“In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If you thought I had none of the answers you seek,” said the woman, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him, “tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now as a lover or a friend?” She was met with silence. “Ah, no.”

Victor seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he asked with a struggle, “You think not?”

“You know, I would gladly think otherwise if I could,” she answered, “But if we were strangers and you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose me? And with all our history still stretched behind us, and your lust for this artificial life, can I ever know for certain if you love me for my heart and soul, or for the secrets I supposedly carry? I cannot, and therefore I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you could have been.”

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

“You may—“ Sarah cut herself off and took an unsteady breath, and Victor was struck by how young yet frail she appeared, even at the midpoint of her life. “The memory of what is past half makes me hope you will…have pain in this. Of course, I know now that you will only let yourself feel it a very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as a foolish, boyhood dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. Then, you will hide yourself away with your chemicals and incantations, just as your father did. And you will die, Victor…maybe not in flesh, but in every other way.” She looked back up at him, and her eyes were sad, hard, and brimming with regret. “May you be happy in the life you have chosen.”

She left him, and they parted.

“Nina,” said Victor, too overcome to care, “show me no more. Take me back to my office. Why do you delight in torturing me?”

“One shadow more.” warned the Ghost.

“No more,” cried Victor. “No more, I don't want to see it. Show me no more!”

“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “That they are what they are, do not blame me.”

It was a myriad of shouts, whispers, and screams. Images flashed in front of his eyes of the children in his care, each one endangered by him, by his actions. Sarah had been right; he’d long since died.

“SHOW ME NO MORE!” Victor bellowed, rearing back to strike the Spirit across the face, but as his hand made contact the Ghost burst into golden and white hot light that overcame every sense.

When Victor opened his eyes, he was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being back in his office. Corbierre eyed him glassily, and Victor had barely time to reel into his chair, before he sank into a heavy sleep.


	3. The Second Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally the Christmas season! Whoopeeeee!
> 
> Also, it's not stated explicitly in the text, but this ghost takes the shape of the real Harriet Denby, but this is obviously before Victor knows who she is lol.
> 
> Enjoy!

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in his chair to get his thoughts together, Victor had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger sent to him through Rufus’ intervention. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder how this new spectre would appear to him, he stood and gathered his keys, intent to establish a sharp look-out all round the house. He wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise yet again.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he had to force himself to keep from trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he moved throughout the darkened hallways of the house, keeping watch over his home. When he reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in foyer, he found his mind drifting to that failed ceremony and the blasted children who’d foiled every carefully laid plan he’d ever made. His lip curled in frustrated disappointment as the clock proclaimed the hour.

He was distracted, then, by a dim light that seemed to shine on him, which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining living room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine under the closed double doors. He shuffled cautiously to the door, and the moment Victor’s hand was on the knob, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.

It was the living room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring in the fireplace, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Victor’s time, or the Frobisher-Smythe’s, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.

In easy state upon this couch, there sat a smiling woman who’s face he did not recognize yet seemed familiar nonetheless. Still, even in her plainness, she was glorious to see, bearing a glowing torch, in shape not unlike that terrible instrument of the Staff of Osiris, but much warmer and kinder in spirit, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Victor, as he came peeping round the door.

“Come in,” exclaimed the Ghost. “Come in, and know me better!”

Victor entered circumspectly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not as keen to challenge this woman as he had been an hour earlier; and though the Spirit's eyes were kind, he did not like to meet them.

“I am the Ghost of all that is Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me.”

Victor reluctantly did so. The familiar woman was clothed in one simple red gown, trimmed with both hieroglyphs and Christian psalms of forgiveness and repentance, all woven with golden thread. It seemed strange to Victor that those two would differing messages should be adorned by this Spirit, and yet he dared not question it; if only he could get a closer look at the hieroglyphs. The Spirit’s feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were bare; and on her head she wore no other covering than a wreath, set here and there with shimmering beads. Her dusty brown brown hair was free; free as her genial face, her sparkling eye, her open hand, her cheery voice, her unconstrained demeanor, and her joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

“You have never seen the like of me before?” remarked the Spirit, an inexplicable air of amusement in her tone.

“Never,” Victor answered.

“Have never walked forth with the younger member of my family; meaning my other sister born in those later years.' pursued the Phantom.

“I don't think I have,” said Victor, uncertainly, trying to think back to any of the people he’d deigned himself to interact with or any spirits he’d come across since that one Forgotten Ruler. “I am afraid I have not. Have you had many sisters, Spirit?”

“Hardly a sister,” said the Ghost. “And not mine even so. I simply wear the face of someone you were meant to know. Who you will know very soon.”

“I thought you were meant to be the Ghost of the Present,” muttered Victor. “Yet you talk of both the past and future.”

The Spirit rose with a chuckle. “The present is but a moment and then it is gone. Already my time is fleeting.”

“Spirit,” said Victor resignedly, “conduct me where you will. I went forth last night when compelled, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight, if you have aught to teach me, let me learn.”

She hummed, extending the hem of her gown to him. “Touch my garment.”

Victor did as he was told, and held it fast.

All the trimmings that had delightfully adorned the room vanished instantly, as did the room itself, along with the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the yard of the house on Christmas morning. The sky was a gloomy grey, and only a few students seemed to be out and about, considering it was the holiday. The ground was an icy white of snow. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness all around that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

A sudden holler sounded from behind them, and Victor winced at the sound of Alfie Lewis and Willow Jenks tearing across the snow-covered lawn and throwing themselves into the mounds of white, followed almost immediately by Jerome Clarke who was quick to shove as much snow as he could gather in his hands down his roommate’s pants.

More of his students began pouring out of the house, and Victor watched them all take in the morning. Fabian and Mara sat down on the steps together and clinked steaming mugs of Trudy’s hot chocolate, while it seemed that KT and Eddie had challenged Patricia and Joy to a snowman building competition. Victor was reminded suddenly of his past coming up against these children and felt a stab of guilt.

He really had put these children through so much…

The sight of these student revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for she stood with Victor beside her watching them with delight. Even when it appeared as though there might be a quarrel between them—particularly Jerome and Mara—she reached out and laid a hand on each of their shoulders and their eyes softened. It was Christmas, after all, and even the worst transgressions could be laid to rest for a day.

“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” the Spirit remarked when the Osirian smushed a handful of snow playfully into Patricia’s face, which then turned the entire gathering of the Anubis residents into a snowball fight.

Victor wrinkled his nose. “Yes, adorable,” he muttered, though he tried to ignore the chuckle he felt build within him when he watched the group collectively turn on Jerome and pound him, laughing, into the snow with their projectiles. He popped up with his hands raised in surrender.

Soon the day faded to evening and the children were ushered back inside by their housemother. The meal she had nearly finished preparing was truly a sight to behold: a plump turkey sat in the middle of the table, and heaps of potatoes, pudding, vegetables, stuffing, and much more were almost at completion in the kitchen. Even Victor’s mouth watered at the sight of it.

“Mara, Eddie, come help me set the table, dearies!” Trudy bade them as the children took off their gloves and coats. “And, Jerome, could you fetch the gravy? The rest of you, help me finish up with the food.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought these children had never eaten before in their lives. Trudy had made the gravy in a little saucepan, and it was hissing hot as Jerome set it down on the table. Alfie and Fabian mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Willow and Joy sweetened up the apple-sauce; KT and Patricia dusted the hot plates; Mara and Eddie set plates for everybody, not forgetting themselves. At last the dishes were set on, and the students gathered at the table. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Trudy, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the turkey; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board.

There never was such a turkey. Eddie said he didn't believe there ever was such a turkey cooked. Its tenderness, size, and flavour, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole group; indeed, as Trudy said with great delight, they hadn't ate it all at last. Yet every one had had enough, and Alfie, in particular, was steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Joy, Trudy left the room alone to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough. Suppose it should break in turning out. All sorts of horrors were supposed. She wanted it to be perfect for her children.

With a nervous chuckle from Trudy, the pudding was out of the copper. A wondrous smell and appearance. That was the pudding. In half a minute Trudy entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

“Oh, a wonderful pudding,” Mara exclaimed.

“Yes,” agreed Fabian, “I think one of the greatest successes I’ve ever seen.”

The rest of the children nodded their agreement and Trudy said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, even the two Americans who had never had much in the way of a pudding before. It would have been flat heresy to do otherwise.

At last the dinner was all done, the table was cleared and the silverware and plates put in the sink for washing. Then all the residents drew ‘round the livingroom, perched on couches and chairs.

They each poured themselves a mug of warm cider—without alcohol, Trudy clearly stressed—and after a moment, Fabian lifted his mug in toast.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Yes,” replied Trudy once they’d all echoed Joy and taken a sip. “A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.”

“God bless us every one,” joked Eddie in a terrible British accent, which had the whole house giggling.

“No, but for real, that turkey was so good,” Alfie groaned, rubbing his stomach and stretching luxuriously.

“Mhm,” Mara hummed. “The true touchstone of the meal.”

The word sparked a sense of dread in Victor and he thought of something he hadn’t considered in a long while.

“Spirit,” said Victor, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if the Osirian will live.”

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost with a sympathetic sigh, “at the table, and heavy, broken hearts. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the boy will die.”

“No,” breathed Victor, thinking of Eric’s face should his boy be ripped from him. He then looked at his students, and at one girl in particular and thought of them. “Oh, no, Spirit. Say that if it comes down to that, he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, Present shall never find him again,’ returned the Ghost. “What then? They are only meddlesome miscreants, after all? Why should you care?”

Victor remained silent, and turned his face away. Suddenly, he heard his own name be called.

“Victor,” said Trudy; “We should toast to him. And anyway, I’ve got to bring a plate up to him.”

“Toast him?” exclaimed Joy, reddening. “I wish he were down here right now. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it.”

“Joy!” scolded Trudy, “I know you’re upset about him not donating to the Sugarplum Foundation, but it’s Christmas Day.”

“How is it Christmas Day,” Patricia piped up in support of her friend, “if we drink to the health of such a stingy, hard, unfeeling man.”

Joy nodded. “You know he is, Trudy. Nobody knows it better than you do.”

“My dears,” was Trudy’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.”

Patricia rolled her eyes, and Joy sighed. “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” she said, “not for his.”

With a bitter snort, Jerome raised his mug. “Long life to him,” he said.

Fabian shook his head. “A merry Christmas and a happy new year. He'll be very merry and very happy, I imagine.”

The rest drank the toast quietly, and Trudy bustled away up the stairs. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Victor was the Ogre of the house, and the mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of their harsh caretaker being done with. Willow put on the radio and tuned it in to a station playing Christmas carols. Eddie, downing the rest of his cider, grabbed Patricia by the wrist and hauled her to her feet despite her loud protests; he started spinning her around in a clumsy dance while Alfie and Jerome hooted and hollered at the sight of Patricia’s flushed yet undeniably pleased face.

Mara and Fabian chatted about house much work they still had to do before the holiday was over, and Joy popped in to explain how she meant to have a proper lie-in lie the next morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. All this time snacks were passed around and around; and by-and-bye they had a carol, sung by Willow, who had a raspy but pleasant little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

They were just children, Victor noted. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another for the most part, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Victor had his eye upon them, and especially on Eddie, the Osirian, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Victor and the Spirit went along the winding paths of the woods on the school grounds, the brightness of the house faded behind them in the whirl of white.

It was a surprise to Victor when they came up on the Gatehouse where the Denby woman lived, where the ceremony had so ungraciously failed. The Spirit guided him through the walls and into the upstairs parlor room with the organ. Beyond that was the hidden tower room.

Denby sat alone in a chair, a thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she examined something held between her thumb and forefinger. Upon closer look, it was her key, the one forged as a Sun. She looked pensive, uncertain, yet determined nonetheless, and when Victor turned to question the Spirit, he found the woman with a melancholy look in her eye.

“Why have you brought me here?” Victor said. “Our endeavors failed, and I want nothing more to do with that wretched woman.”

“Ah,” the Ghost sighed, and Victor noticed that she looked much frailer, and the clarity which had twinkled in her eyes early had faded to a dull haze. “You are indeed correct that your endeavors failed, and I pity you.” A muffled voice called out from somewhere in the house and Denby’s eyes darted nervously to the door. Before Victor could question it, the Spirit once again spoke. “Come,” she said, and the scene faded to blackness, “my time grows near.”

“Are spirits’ lives so short?” Victor asked.

“Indeed, mine is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends tonight.”

“Tonight?” echoed Victor.

“Tonight at midnight. Look, the hour is nigh.”

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

There was a cold laugh that hissed out from beneath the Ghost’s gown. “Forgive me,” said Victor, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot…or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the foldings of her dress, she brought two children—not young, no older nor younger than the residents of Anubis House; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They crouched down at the Spirit’s feet, and clung upon the outside of her garment.

They were a boy and a girl, yet their faces shifted, to Victor’s horror, through all the children he knew from Anubis House, and even more, yet their features were grotesque and eyes a sorrowful, passionate red. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Victor started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit, are they yours?” Victor could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “The Sins of Man. And they cling to me. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but for you most of all beware this girl, for on her brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out her hand towards the city. “Do not be consumed by your Greed, lest ye shrivel up and hollow out!”

“Whatever do you mean?” Victor cried out to the Ghost, but she merely shook her head. The bell struck twelve.

Victor looked about him for the Spirit, but saw her not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Rufus, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, wearing a cloak of copper and gold with the hood drawn far over his face, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

Victor’s mouth grew dry. The final Ghost had arrived.


	4. The Last of the Spirits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter sucks. i'm adding the last chapter as a separate one to end this.
> 
> I'm finally on break so expect some more fun stuff coming your way!

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, it was all Victor could do not to bend down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deeply colored garment, so copper in color in a certain light it almost seemed red. The hood concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand.

He felt more than he saw that the Ghost was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

“I am in the presence of the Ghost of what is Yet To Come?” said Victor.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

“You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,” Victor pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?”

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Victor feared the silent shape so much that his legs practically trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stay standing when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, observing his condition, and gave him time to recover.

But Victor was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the golden shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of hood.

“Ghost of the Future,” he exclaimed, surprised by his own honesty, “I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, I am prepared to bear you company. Will you not speak to me?”

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

After a long moment, Victor sighed. “Lead on,” he said. “Lead on. The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit.”

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

The setting shifted from its dark void back into the living room of Anubis House once again. It looked different somehow, antiques smashed and picture frames shattered, the glass scattered all around the room. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. It truly looked like a storm had blown through the place. Distantly, Victor heard screeching and shrill laughter, the raucousness of children and adults alike. No sunlight filtered in through the window, casting the destroyed room in a dismal, muddy red glow.

The Spirit stopped and pointed toward one of the chairs still upright in the room. Only one person sat there in the chaos, Fabian Rutter. He had his back to Victor and the Spirit, hunched over an old, leather-bound book. The quiet shouting in the distance sudden became far louder as the door in the foyer swung open with a crash. Victor jumped, turning around to see who’d entered on such a disconcerting scene.

It was Patricia Williamson, her hair piled high atop her head and streaks of grime and blood painted her cheeks. She looked as raggedy as the room. She was grinning ear to ear as she stumbled into the living room.

“Guess what!” she crowed, and Victor involuntarily winced at the unpleasant grate in her tone.

Fabian didn’t look up from his reading and merely sniffed distastefully in her direction. “I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care.” He paused. “Unless, of course, you managed to catch the stupid fools this time instead of letting them escape. Again.”

She spit at him with what almost sounded like a growl, and Victor could have sworn he noticed her eyes flash red like the children the Second Spirit had shown him. “No, and I don’t see you working too hard either,” she snarled, wrenching the book from Fabian’s hands, ripping a few pages in the process. “Anyway, no. She’s finally devoured him.”

Outside, there was a blood curdling scream that had Victor jumping nearly a foot in the air.

Fabian’s brow furrowed for a moment before some epiphany dawned on him. “Really?” He asked slowly, the grin on his face disconcerting.

She nodded, her own smirk smug and malicious. “Saw it with my own eyes. Never thought I’d see the day we were finally rid of that geezer.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring of keys, ones that looked so familiar to him, Victor found himself absently reaching into his own pocket. “C’mon, let’s see what he had locked away.”

Fabian wrinkled his nose, but he laughed outright. “Oh, come on, Patricia,” he drawled, his voice razor sharp with sarcasm, “isn’t that a little disrespectful to the dead, raiding their personal belongings?”  
  
She snorted harshly. “If he wanted to keep his stuff after he was dead, the ‘greedy bastard,” Patricia pursued, “he shouldn’t have let himself fall out of favor with the Great Devourer… or he should have just stuck with the Osirian and his little band of friends. Maybe then he'd have had somebody to look after him instead of being ripped to shreds alone by himself.”

Victor’s blood was ice at the mention of Ammut and he whipped his head around to look at the Spirit; its posture was resigned, and the Phantom, despite its face being shrouded, looked so tired.

“Well, it’s a judgement on him, then,” Fabian said before Victor could ask the Spirit the dreadful question that now darkened his mind. “Let’s go take a look.”  
  
“Bet the rest would get a kick out of it,” Patricia said conversationally, jangling the keys. “They always hated him.”

Fabian laughed. “Summon them then,” he said, then continued thoughtfully. “This is the end of it, you see. He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead.”

Victor listened to this dialogue in horror. As he watched the two of them, he viewed them with a detestation and terror he could never have ascribed to these children no matter how meddlesome they’d been in the past.

He simply could not believe what he was seeing, and though his gut told him otherwise, his brain worked hard to rationalize the information presented to him.

“Spirit,” said Victor, shuddering from head to foot. “I see, I see. This is what may have happened had the ceremony gone awry. A chilling example, Spirit. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Oh gods, what is this?”

He recoiled in surprise, for the scene had changed, and now he almost bumped into a hunched figure. She was weeping heavily, her back to Victor and the Spirit, curled up against a tomb in the middle of what Victor now recognized as the crypt.

Cautiously, Victor moved so he could see her face and winced at the sight of Kara Tatiana’s tear-tracked, filthy visage. Her fingers gripped the edge of the tomb so tightly Victor worried that her bones might snap. She looked frail, defeated.

It was only then Victor noticed another figure in the room, a woman he was started to recognize. It was the Second Spirit, except it wasn’t. This woman was human, and she, too, was dirty and hunched.

Besides KT’s sobs, it was quiet. Very quiet. The shouts he’d heard earlier were muffled, seemingly far away.

Finally the woman sighed. “There’s nothing more to it now,” she said, her voice flat and barely above a whisper. “It’s over.”  
  
KT hiccuped and a shudder racked her body. “It can’t be over,” she said. “He can’t be dead, he can’t be. I didn’t fail, Harriet, please tell me I didn’t fail.”

The woman, Harriet—and wasn’t it strange that the wretched woman Denby and this frail creature would have that same name—shook her head gravely, and approached the teenager circumspectly. “Don’t be sad for him,” she murmured. “He is in the Afterlife. He is safe.”  
  
“I know— _knew_ him too well,” KT said. “He’d have rather stayed and suffered here with the people he loves. There’s no one there waiting for him.”

Victor recoiled, nearly crashing into the hooded Spirit. It was clear they weren’t talking about the same death that Fabian and Patricia had, and Victor had a sinking feeling in his gut as he recalled the Ghost of the Present’s earlier warning. “Spirit, please tell me the boy is not…”

The Phantom lifted a hand and pointed to the tomb that KT clung to. Step by shaking step he approached the lip of the structure and peered in; he nearly retched in horror. Eddie Miller’s body, cold and grey, lay on the stone. Though the corpse would never speak again, it announced itself in awful language.

“How could this happen?” Victor breathed, his heart thundering. “What went wrong? Spirit, what is to become of them?”

The Spirit remained silent and the scene changed again. The upper room of the Gatehouse. Where the crypt had been quiet, this room was torturously loud, the sounds of hundreds of tormented souls screaming in unison.

The copper-clad Ghost pointed toward one of the ornate sarcophagi behind Victor.

Victor took a shaking breath, the pieces of this dismal scene coming together in a dreadful fashion. “Before I draw near to which you point,” he said, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the sarcophagus by which it stood.

“Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Victor. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.”

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Victor crept towards it, trembling as he went; gazed upon his own face staring back at him.

“Am I that man who was Devoured?” he cried, upon his knees. “That means I’d already committed such a transgression to land myself here in the first place.

The finger pointed from the sarcophagus to him, and back again.

“No, Spirit. Oh no, no…”

The finger still was there.

“Spirit,” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me. I will do everything not to be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?”

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

“Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: “Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life.”

The kind hand trembled, then fell and lifted back its hood. Victor gasped. “Robert?”

The Spirit nodded, his eyes sad, guilty, woeful. This Spirit was the only one who truly was as their visage suggested.

“Robert, please tell me I may wash away these sins!”

The Spirit reached out and place a hand on Victor’s shoulder with a sad smile, and suddenly he was shoved back, back, back into the darkness, the screams fading away into silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> genuinely don't know what i was trying to write here so just bear with me, y'all


	5. The End of It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas Eve Eve! I hope everyone has had a good week leading up to the holiday!
> 
> I tried to tie this ending in more with the original story, so it might be a LITTLE OOC for Victor but too bad it's Christmas lol.  
> Now grab a warm mug of hot chocolate and enjoy the final chapter of A Christmas Carol: Anubis Edition.
> 
> xoxo,  
> Tess

The darkness seemed to last forever and yet only a moment, and suddenly their was light filtering in from behind his eyelids. Blinking into the daylight, it took Victor many moments for his eyes to adjust, heart still thundering from his experience.

When he was finally back to himself, he took in his surroundings and his heart grew lighter. He was back in his office, and the early morning light of Christmas Day shone through the windows. He cut a glance out the window. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious.

The room was his own, and best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own.

He was so fluttered and so glowing, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, with Robert, and his face was wet with tears.

“I am not dead,” cried Victor, reaching out to stroke Corbierre’s back with a feather light touch. “The boy still lives. Those miscreants are here—I am here—the shadows of the things that might be, may be dispelled. They will be. Corbierre, I hope they will.”

He nearly toppled over when he stood up from his chair, so weak were his legs from relief and fright and joy.

He made his way into the living room, thankfully not destroyed as the Third Spirit had shown it to be, and was now standing there: perfectly winded.

Trudy and Fabian stood there, startled by his sudden appearance, no doubt the boy having volunteered to help his housemother with breakfast. So taken aback were their expressions that Victor began to laugh.

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs.

_I don't know what day of the month it is,_ he thought. _I don't know how long I've been among the Spirits. I don't know anything, really._

“What day is today?” asked Victor.

“Ehhh…” returned Fabian, with all his might of wonder. He looked at Trudy out of the corner of his eye, but her bemused expression said it all. “It’s December 25th … Christmas Day, Victor.”

“Are you quite alright, Victor?” Trudy asked him gently, putting down the plate heaped with breakfast foods and approaching him cautiously.

_I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can!_

“Am I alright?” said Victor, laughing and crying in the same breath. “I am as light as a feather, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man!” Quite high on the messages of the Three Spirits, he clasped Trudy on the shoulder. “A merry Christmas to you, Trudy.”

She blinked, mouth falling open. “Why, I—“ She paused, eyes misting over. “Merry Christmas, Victor,” she said, her voice choked up with emotion.

“What’s all this then?” Joy Mercer said from behind him, and Victor now noticed they had an audience of nearly all the rest of the children.

“Victor, are you _crying?”_ Jerome asked, and Alfie rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

Victor composed himself and stood up straight; the children, he noticed, seemed to flinch back instinctively, and it made his chest squeeze with guilt. “No,” he said, “of course not…” He trailed off, and an idea occurred to him. “Miss Mercer, Miss Rush, may I speak to you for a moment?”

The two girls shot each other dubious looks and the rest of the residents muttered among themselves about what sort of affliction had gripped their caretaker.

Victor murmured something to them quietly, and KT’s face was the first to light up; the sight was welcome after his visions the night before. “Victor,” she exclaimed, “are you serious?”

He sniffed, attempting to save a little bit of his dignity, but he couldn’t stop the small smile from shining through. “I am. And not a penny less.”

Joy was taken aback, eyes wide with surprise. “Oh my god,” she said, a grin stretching across her face. “Thank you so much…the children will be so happy!” Suddenly, she launched herself into his arms, and Victor was unsure if he should hug her in return. He was acutely aware of the repentance he owed not only Joy but all of the children in the house.

“Merry Christmas,” was what he settled for, his gaze sweeping the astounded faces of the residents and Trudy. “Merry Christmas.”

Eddie, from where he’d plopped himself down on the couch, crooned out in a terrible British falsetto, “God bless us, everyone!”

Everyone, even Victor, laughed at that.

Truth be told, Victor wasn’t sure how much of that future he could change, but he did know that he would work hard to change himself, give these children the chance he never had—or rather, give them the chance he never took. A storm might be brewing, but for now, there was hope and an abundance of Christmas spirit.

May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Eddie observed, God—or really, in the case of most of the Anubis House residents _gods_ —bless Us, Every One!


End file.
